er.

But there was one boy (a bright-eyed little fellow with brown curly
hair) who took no part in the fun, but sat in a corner by himself,
chalking curious figures on the wall, which he seemed to copy from the
book in his other hand. Any one who had looked closely at these figures
would have seen that they were _letters_--Russian letters--and that
sometimes he would write a whole word at once, and then put the meaning
opposite it in German. In fact, he was teaching himself the language of
this new country that he had got into, and seemed to be pretty well on
with it, for every now and then he would leave off writing, and read a
page of his book without meeting a single word that he could not master.

"Look at Karl Osterman yonder, slaving away at that book of his!" said
one of the men. "Much good that'll do him! As if one could saw a plank
or hammer a rivet any better for knowing that crack-jaw lingo!"

"He's going to teach the Russians their own language--that's what he's
at!" grinned another. "A regular professor, ain't he? far too clever for
poor fellows like us!"

"Ay, he'll be a great man one of these days," chimed in a third, with a
hoarse laugh, "and then perhaps he'll be kind enough to give us a job."

Little Karl's eyes sparkled, and he set his lips firmly, as if making up
his mind that he _would_ be a great man yet, somehow or other; but he
said nothing, and went quietly on with his work.

Suddenly the door flew open, and in came a Russian soldier in a shabby
green uniform trimmed with faded gold lace. He was a very tall and
powerful man, with a dark, weather-beaten face framed in close-cropped
hair, and great black eyes that seemed to pierce right through any one
whom they looked at.

"I say, my good fellows," cried he, "here's an order from the Czar,
which I'm to paste up in this room; and I want to have it in German and
Swedish as well as Russian, that every one who comes in may be able to
read it. Perhaps one of you would kindly lend me a hand with the job,
for I'm not very glib at foreign languages myself."

The men glanced meaningly at each other, and the two who had been making
fun of Osterman looked rather sheepish, as if thinking that they had
better have been learning Russian themselves instead of laughing at him.

"I'll do it for you, Mr. Soldier," said little Osterman, stepping boldly
forward, "if there aren't any very big words in it. I've only got as far
as three-syllable words in Russi